Route reliability record
IAH→SNA
Houston to Santa Ana
- Flights
- 1,092
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,346 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 45 minutes. That rests on 1,092 IAH to SNA flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to SNA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.5%, against 88.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 112 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,087 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
88.5% on time across 1,092 flights
These figures cover 1,092 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to SNA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,092 | 88.5% | 45 min | 0.00% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH to SNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston to Santa Ana
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → SNAHouston to Santa Ana | United Airlines | 88.5% | 88.5% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1383 09:30 |
| 2. IAH → LAXHouston to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 86.9% | 87.7% | 0.93% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1216 07:00 |
| 3. IAH → LAXHouston to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 85.5% | 85.7% | 0.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2431 06:00 |
| 4. IAH → LAXHouston to Los Angeles | SkyWest Airlines | 78.9% | 79.3% | 0.49% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
| 5. HOU → LAXHouston to Los Angeles | Southwest Airlines | 73.5% | 73.6% | 0.17% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,092 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am365 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm363 flights87.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am363 flights86.4%
Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 91.2% on time for the 8am–11am window against 86.4% for 8pm–5am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to SNA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On IAH to SNA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 86.4%, a narrow gap of 4.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.2%
- 11am–2pm87.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am86.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
June is the worst month at 76.4% on time, 20 points below December, the best at 96.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 5,611 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,712 of the 5,611 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,611 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,346 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 88.4% on time across 1,092 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,092 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SNA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,092 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 88.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,087 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to SNA questions
How often is IAH to SNA delayed?
About one flight in nine arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 11.5% of the 1,092 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is IAH to SNA compared with the rest of the country?
88.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAH to SNA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 86.4%, 5 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are June delays on IAH to SNA?
June is the weakest month at 76.4% on time, compared with 96.8% in December. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SNA to IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- John Wayne Airport (SNA) delay statistics
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- SFO to SNA, a related route77.4%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- United Airlines on-time record88.5%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. IAH to SNA and SNA to IAH are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.